Our Century

In cycling the term "century" means a ride of 100 miles (I know that probably just blew your mind). On RAGBRAI last year, we discovered that the organizers always plan one day with an extra optional loop which the serious-to-hardcore cyclists can take to get their mileage up to 100 for the day, and complete a century during the week long ride.

We found ourselves challenged enough with the normal distance each day of RAGBRAI, generally averaging somewhere between 60 and 70 miles, so we definitely passed up on the century. In fact, I believe by the time we got to the optional loop, the organizers were actually telling riders it was too late in the day to take the loop and safely make it to the overnight town before dark. After that experience I had a hard time fathoming the idea that we would ever complete a century with our current cycling skills and equipment (we have hybrid bikes and no special toe clips or clip-on pedals to improve our efficiency).

What a difference a year makes! We planned our first round trip ride between Ames and Des Moines for today, which we estimated to be 92 miles. At the crack of 7am we were leaving our driveway, taking the bike lane on South Dakota out of Ames to Slater where we jumped on the High Trestle Trail to Ankeny. Once we reached the trailhead, we headed west on 1st Street towards Saylorville Lake until we got to the Neal Smith Trail, and completed the final leg into downtown Des Moines.

We reached our lunch destination of Fong's Pizza around 1:30pm, and found we had gone 48.1 miles! Some of that distance was extra riding we did while trying (and occasionally failing) to follow a detour near the end of the Neal Smith Trail, due to the high water of the Des Moines River. But still, with the slightly-higher than expected mileage, I realized that by the time we rode back home, we would be within a few miles of a century.

This was too good an opportunity to pass up! But first, I had to convince Amy. I casually suggested it while we were leaving Fong's to plant the idea in her head.

Here is a picture of her pondering this thought while we were on the north side of the Saylorville Lake dam.

By the time we were on our way back through Slater I had pretty much gone to self-pity, explaining that this would probably be the only time in my life I would ever be this close to a century; how could we not ride the extra five or so miles!?

I am not above self-pity.

I also promised I would never ask her to do a century again. Ever.

Amy came around, and once we got to Ames we took a few (quite a few) extra laps through the streets in our neighborhood in order to get up the requisite three digit odometer reading.

The final tally: 100.2 miles!

Made Right

We stopped in Tama for lunch today and had what I like to refer to as "more than just a loose-meat sandwich." The Maid-Rite is a tasty meal, made all the more special to me because we always stopped at this particular restaurant, The Big T, in my youth on the annual family outing to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Trestles and Trails

This past Sunday Mother Nature finally remembered that it is Spring and turned the outdoor thermostat up a few degrees, as well as giving us a break from the rain that never seemed to end last week. We jumped at the chance to get back out on our bicycles and put in a solid day of RAGBRAI training.

While we have been able to squeeze in some 15 mile rides after dinner every once in awhile, we have been feeling the pressure to get in some longer rides (a typical day on RAGBRAI is 60-80 miles). After eating a late breakfast we decided we had enough time to head out of Ames on South Dakota Ave and try out the new highway bike lanes completed this spring that go the entire nine miles south to Slater (a town made infamous in this post).

There is nothing quite like the feeling of riding smooth-tire bicycles on fresh asphalt (and by fresh I mean having been laid within the past year; asphalt laid earlier that same day would provide an entirely different and likely less enjoyable cycling experience). On the reasonably flat grade we felt as if we were gliding over the surface, propelled by the pollen spores bursting from the drainage ditch grass along the entire route. At various points Amy checked her speedometer and found that we were going 20+ MPH with our normal effort! This was a nice boost over our experience on RAGBRAI last year, when we could only get close to 20 MPH if we really pushed ourselves for short bursts on the flatter stretches. Apparently turning off the suspension in the front forks of our bikes really does make a difference--thanks to the fellow Bike World RAGBRAI charter member who gave us that tip last year after we returned. We're looking forward to putting it into action this year.

We reached Slater in what felt like no time at all, and as we turned onto the two-block long main street I was wondering if we'd have any luck finding a place to eat in the small town. Fortunately we saw some fellow cyclists who looked refreshed and ready to ride leaving the Take Down Bar & Grill. Clearly we had found the right spot for lunch.


We grabbed seats at the empty bar, ordered some sodas and burgers with fries, and watched NASCAR which happened to be on at that moment. Since racing isn't exactly my favorite spectator sport, I was elated when the bartender handed me the remote! I quickly found game seven of the NBA Playoffs game featuring the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. the Memphis Grizzlies, which we both found to be much more entertaining. Amy and I discussed the intricacies of the game, including how challenging and irritating it must be to play basketball with a big bushy beard like this guy.


Alas, our basketball watching was not for long, as an old timer named John soon came in, greeted the bartender by first name, then grabbed a seat near us and said, "I wonder if there's any NASCAR on... you ain't watching this are ya?"

Of course I didn't want to come across as the city slicker down from Ames who thinks he runs the place, so I obligingly bent the truth a little with my response.

"Nope."

The food was great, and as we ate our meal some more of the locals showed up, all of whom knew John. It was fun listening in on their conversations, including the story about a girl at the bar the previous night who had just moved there from Jacksonville, FL and though she would like it, but wasn't happy with the small town feel or the fact that, according to her, everyone who lived there was "creepy." I'm not sure how someone from Florida decides that Slater, IA would be a great relocation destination if they're not into the small-town thing, but perhaps she'll try relocating again a little further south to West Des Moines for the Jordan Creek Mall and more of a big city feel.

As for us, Slater and its Take Down Bar & Grill will definitely become a favorite bicycle destination of ours.

With our bellies full of energy-stoking calories, we headed out again, and jumped on the 25 mile long High Trestle Trail which forms a sort of boomerang shape with its tips pointing to the south and west, and the midsection "elbow" (that's a boomerang term, right?) pointing at Slater. Having heard a lot about the just-opened High Trestle Bridge, a 13-story tall, half-mile long pedestrian bridge over the Des Moines River, we were really interested in checking it out and riding over it.

Thirteen miles later, we came upon the bridge, and it did not disappoint! The following pictures don't do it justice, but they provide an idea of its awesomeness. For all those East or West Coasters who think Iowa is completely flat, I invite you to visit this bridge and gaze upon the impressive hills of the Des Moines River Valley. We may not have the Rockies or the Grand Canyon, but I would still pay money to see some crazy daredevil with a jetpack fly across this valley.


I cannot fathom how the concrete was poured for the path surface. The columns rising out of the river were already there from an older railroad bridge, but the surface was completely replaced, and apparently some brave concrete truck drivers had to back down the completed portion of the path to deliver the material needed to complete the next section. Wow.

The artistic touches on the bridge are interesting as well. The spiraling frame structures are intended to evoke the feeling of looking down a mine shaft, which were numerous in the area a few centuries ago and mined by immigrant Italians.


After continuing on a few more miles to the western endpoint of the trail at Woodward, we turned around and rode back, crossing the bridge again and stopping in nearby Madrid for a quick calorie boost with some ice cream at the Filling Station, which appropriately enough looks like (and probably once was) an old-timey filling station.


Finally we were ready for the thirteen mile trek back to Slater, followed by the last nine miles to Ames. Well, one of was ready at least. The other one (who may or may not be me, but if you could see me now let's just say I would be giving you my "shifty eyes") should probably have spent more time on the stationary bike at the rec center and less time perfecting their free-throw stroke over the past winter. More on that in a bit.

While the wind was relatively friendly to us during the first half of our journey, it seemed to have shifted when we turned around in Woodward, and from that point forward we would have constant headwind coming out the north east, which wasn't so great since our remaining directions of travel were east and north. After slogging through some grueling miles we finally arrived back at Slater, and found the oasis that is a Casey's General Store. Known for their gas, pizza, and sandwiches, we stopped in and consumed two out of those three (determining which two is left to the reader as a guessing game).

Amy's superior training regimen left her in pretty good shape, but I was feeling a bit run down from all the wind we rode through on the way back to Slater. After sitting on the curb for a while, soaking up some sun and consuming our dinner, I figured I was good to go for the last nine miles to the edge of Ames.

Turns out "good to go" was an overly optimistic opinion. "Ambivalent about lower limb amputation" would have been more apt after riding through a few miles on the highway bike lane with nothing but empty corn fields between us and the wind. My legs were becoming less and less functional with each passing farmhouse, and by the time we had inched back to Ames at an average speed of 8 MPH, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to walk down the stairs to my home office the next morning. We totaled 55 miles for the entire trip, which was a great accomplishment (last year we didn't get a 50+ mile ride in until July), but afterwards I realized I should have worked my distance up a bit more gradually and put in as much winter training as Amy.

Happily, I am writing this post a few days later, having stayed off the bike all of Monday and most of Tuesday, and at this point the consistency of my legs has improved from jelly to cookie dough. Hopefully another few days and they'll be back to a solid state.

As has happened more times than I'd like to admit in the past six months, I am once again learning the lesson that my doctor has explained quite well in layman's terms during my previous couple of visits.

"You aren't nineteen any more."

Eventful Weekend

You might say this turned out to be quite an eventful weekend.

Titletown

We got things started Friday night with our second attempt at watching the Iowa Energy, Des Moines' NBA Development (aka minor) League team win the D-League championship for the first time in its short four year history. Each round of the D-League playoffs consists of a best-of-three series, with the first game at the lower-ranked team's site, and the second and, if necessary, third games at the higher-ranked team's location. The Energy made it to the championship round and won the first game in Texas against the their opponent, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers!

The team has gained a decent following over the past few years partly thanks to former Iowa State Cyclone Curtis Stinson leading the team on the court, playing at a high level as the starting point guard. The level of excitement around the team took a huge leap when the buzz started in central Iowa that the team had a great shot at winning their first league championship in game two last Wednesday.

Most people figured, hey, if the team can win game one in front of a hostile crowd on the road, in Texas of all states, then winning at home in front of one of the best crowds in the league with the championship one victory away should be a walk in the park, right?

Unfortunately, that's probably what the players thought as well, and we (along with current ISU men's basketball coach and free-throw machine Fred Hoiberg!) sat among the D-League all-time record crowd of 14,000+ in Des Moines as the Energy let the game get out of hand in the third quarter, and the Vipers evened the series one game each.

That left the final and decisive game scheduled for last Friday. We had been planning to get in a long bike ride to kick our RAGBRAI preparations into high gear Friday after work, but then the cold and wind conspired against us, so we decided instead to make the trip back down to Des Moines for the game. While the tickets were quite reasonable at face value, we got a real deal from someone we met on the street walking to the game: two tickets for five bucks each, sitting in the sixth row near one end of the court.

Turns out that we were fortunate the weather canceled our biking plans, as we ended up witnessing a great game and, best of all, the celebration afterwards as the Energy hoisted the championship trophy. I have never before been doused in so much confetti!



Dang Good Pizza

Being in attendance for such a victory meant that we had to celebrate, so we headed to Court Avenue and partook in some of the best pizza known to central Iowa at Fong's Pizza. Here is a photo of one of the many delicious slices of crab rangoon pizza that we consumed.



Full disclosure: a loss in the game would have been an excuse to drown our sorrows in cheese and crust, so we were pretty much doing Fong's no matter what!

Hackstravaganza

Saturday was the annual Cyber Defense Competition, hosted by Iowa State University at Hilton Coliseum, and my second time participating fully as a member of the Red team. There were 25 teams from Iowa high schools across the state registered as Blue teams, tasked with protecting a mock computer network for a fake corporation while the Red team members try to hack in to read and write flags to protected locations on hard drives. The Blue teams lose points for each successful intrusion by the Red team, and the team with the most points wins honor and glory and some nifty prizes.

The highlight of the day for me was during the "fire drill" in the afternoon when the Blue teams were required to leave their work spaces, and the Red team members got to walk around for twenty minutes looking for unlocked terminals and useful information laying out in the open. I happened across a piece of paper where a team had written down all their administrator passwords and promptly snapped a photo with my smartphone.

Obama vs Osama

Of course the most significant event of the weekend was the announcement on live TV by the President Sunday evening that Osama bin Laden had been found and killed in Pakistan by a team of Navy Seals. While previous generations had Martin Luther King or JFK, 9/11 was the first event seared into our memories, and I remember walking across campus in Ames that morning on my way to a parallel programming class when I met Bethany from our dorm coming the opposite way between Music Hall and Carver Hall. As I was about to offer a friendly "Hello," she stopped me to mention some bizarre news about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. It would be another few hours before I returned from class and learned that what seemed at first like a strange accident turned out to be anything but.

It is hard to believe that nearly a decade has passed since that day. While I don't believe the elimination of bin Laden has suddenly rid the world of terrorism, the event does provide a sort of cathartic satisfaction that also seemed to be felt everywhere from DC and NYC to the campuses of Penn State and Iowa State.

One can only imagine the thoughts going through the heads of the Executive branch in this incredible photo apparently taken at the White House as the events were going down in Pakistan. Hopefully the successes in fighting terrorism continue for this and future administrations.

Lofty Goals

As I continue my journey of recovering from an ankle sprained twice within two months (January and February), I have worked my way back onto the basketball court at the campus rec center. Rest assured, I am only shooting free throws and practicing my 180-degree turnaround fall-away jumper, and I am consistently turning down all requests to even out odd-numbered groups of Chinese graduate students who want to get a pickup game going.

Tonight I had to resist the extra special incentive for trying to get in a pickup game when I saw various members of the Iowa State men's basketball team taking on all challengers. While standing on the sideline I got this picture of Calvin Godfrey putting up a jumper while fellow freshmen Jordan Railey and a partially-obscured Melvin Ejim look on.

There is something oddly intriguing about wanting to get in a game like this just so I could someday tell my future children, "Hey, see that guy with the name Godfrey playing professional basketball on TV? He dunked on me once at the Rec! Awesome, right!?!?"

The sky's the limit, baby. The sky's the limit.

Biking on the Rebound

With the Iowa temperatures creeping up into the seasonably Spwingter zone of the mid-forties, we got the bicycles prepped and took a short ride out to the mall and back. Of course a bike ride to the mall is not complete without a stop at Cookies, Etc, followed by a stroll up and down the hallway to browse a little at GameStop and count the depressing number of vacant storefronts.

Fortunately I am in a healthy enough state to ride the bicycle. While the ankle band in this picture is intended to keep my pant leg from rubbing on the chain, I would probably be well-advised to also wear such a band with reflective warning tape next time I attempt to play basketball at the rec. The last time I tried a few weeks ago (without a warning band) I managed to sprain my right ankle for the second time in two months. Perhaps the reflective tape would have caused the other players to think "That ankle looks like trouble" and they would give it plenty of room for the foot to land and perhaps even lend a hand to help guide it squarely to the ground.

For some reason (like, oh, maybe the first time I rolled the same ankle just before New Year's), my brain failed to tell my right foot to straighten out for landing when I jumped for a rebound, and I came down on the side of it. Though I felt like I had rehabbed my ankle plenty since the first sprain, in hindsight I probably didn't spend enough time retraining my reflexes to react properly. As my physician told me, "you're not 19 anymore."

Perhaps it's time to put the basketball shoes away for awhile and focus on bicycle season.

Or in a few weeks when I feel like I'm ready to go again, I just need to remember that I'm an outside shooter, and let the 19 year old college kids deal with rebounding.

Happy Pi Day!

We returned to Perkins to celebrate Pi Day 2011 with slices of peanut butter silk and french silk pie. Adam wanted pumpkin and was heartbroken to learn that it is seasonal. I think I see a homemade pumpkin pie in our future.

We prepped for our Pi Day extravaganza with a trip to the rec. I'm going to go ahead and pretend that my slice of pie had fewer calories than I burned in my hour on the exercise bike.

Although we enjoy celebrating Pi Day every year, we are really looking forward to 2015, when the date will represent the first five digits of pi (3.1415) rather than just the first three. Of course, none of this will matter if the world ends in 2012. We'd better live it up while we can.

Speaking of living it up, I had a revelation tonight: because pi's decimal representation never ends or repeats, theoretically any date could be represented in it. Woohoo! Pie every day!

As a special bonus, because we haven't posted in a month, I leave you with pi represented to 50 decimal places. You're welcome.

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

Happy Valentine's Day!

Adam and I don't do a whole lot for Valentine's Day, partly because Adam's birthday is on February 8 and on February 14 we're still recovering from that! But we are happy to take advantage of an excuse to go out for a meal.

Our Valentine's Day dinner of choice this year was sushi at Fuji Japanese Steakhouse. We were among the first 100 couples to be seated for dinner tonight, so they gave us a rose!

Adam spent a few minutes artistically arranging the rose and a jar of soy sauce before he snapped this photo.

We ordered a rainbow roll plus two Valentine's Day special rolls. They were so delicious that we ate half of our food before we remembered to take a picture. We've never had sushi or sashimi at Fuji that didn't taste fresh, and after we moved back, it quickly became one of our favorite Ames restaurants.

We rounded out the evening with some frozen custard from Culver's. Sushi and custard are a guaranteed recipe for a successful Valentine's Day!

ARGH

Men lose again. Nope, don't want to talk about it. Oh wait, there are a couple things I want to mention:

• I love it when Hoiberg gets all up in the refs' faces
• One of the KSU guys tried to BITE one of our guys. What is up with that?!
  

In other news, Adam says this cartoon is about us. I do not disagree.

I think we will have a post tomorrow that involves a cool picture or two. We shall see. In case you are going through picture withdrawal, you can check out our Missouri/New Orleans/Missouri album from our trip in January. Click on the pictures for commentary.

Bad News/Good News

The men lost at Hilton again. I don't want to talk about it.

The good news: the women won at Hilton! (Maybe we should be going to their games instead?) Also, the RAGBRAI overnight towns were announced. It looks like a good year, but we'd better keep training! Three of the overnight towns are Carroll, Boone, and Altoona, which means we will be able to do some training on the actual route.

Hangover in Hilton

A few weeks ago, I asked Adam one of the most important questions I have ever asked him: if the Cyclone men made the post-season, how far would he be willing to travel to see them play? Before I even finished the question, he answered: "Anywhere." We were lucky enough to see the women play in the NCAA tournament here in Ames last spring and we'd love to be able to see the men play in the post-season as well.

Unfortunately, that's probably not going to happen after last night's pathetic attempt against Texas Tech. Our guys looked hungover and were never able to dig themselves out from an early deficit. Texas Tech was clearly the team who wanted to win the most. I've never seen Hoiberg as upset as he was during last night's game, and based on some of his post-game statements, I think the guys can look forward to some punishing practices this week!

There were a couple of bright spots last night, though:

• The student section chanting "Throw a chair!" at Texas Tech's coach, Pat Knight, son of the legendary basketball personality Bobby Knight
• This license plate, which we saw on our way out of the parking lot--Boone from Boone:
  

After a game like that, I'll take my amusement wherever I can get it!

EDITED TO ADD: If you're interested in seeing an extremely annoyed Fred Hoiberg, here's his post-game press conference.

Pick Me Up, Bring Me Down

Last weekend we made a trip to Des Moines to check out a couple of places we had been hearing about for awhile. Up first was a stop at the Mars Cafe in the Drake University neighborhood.

I have frequently seen Mars Cafe mentioned in various Des Moines publications and Twitter posts by Central Iowans I follow, and it seemed like a happening place. We popped in for a few afternoon hours and enjoyed a late lunch with caffeinated beverages of our choices (Amy: Diet Coke; Me: coffee) followed by recreational activities of our choices (Amy: reading a novel; Me: surfing the Internet). The sandwiches were great, and the cafe had a nice modern atmosphere. They also host various interesting events, such as the upcoming Pour-Over Poster Show featuring coffee-themed artwork accompanied by free beer from my favorite Ames-based brewpub, Olde Main. Perhaps we'll have to make a return visit!

After wrapping up at the cafe, we then passed a little time at Barnes & Noble before moving on to The Keg Stand, a bar in West Des Moines that we had heard about from promotions on local sports radio station KXNO as a host for Iowa State University game-watch events. Saturday night's main event was Iowa State's border-war showdown with the Missouri Tigers in men's basketball, and after a should-have-won-but-didn't game on the road at Oklahoma State earlier in the week, we were hoping that this game would be Iowa State's chance to erase bad memories of a couple of close road-losses this season with an away game win over a ranked team. And what better way to celebrate such a significant win than with a large group of fellow Cyclone fans in a bar?

We should have known it was not going to be a good night when we arrived and saw a large section of the bar roped off as reserved space for someone's 40th birthday party, and the congratulatory signs hanging on the wall were done up in Iowa Hawkeye black and gold. As it turned out, the Cyclones kept the game close for about the first ten minutes, until Missouri started playing more like a 14th ranked team at home and Iowa State started playing more like this year's Iowa team (ZING!). As the game went on it only got worse and ended up as a 33 point loss.

At least we were in a location well suited for sorrow-drowning. Even the bar stools are made out of beer kegs!

Despite the disappointing loss to end the night, it was still an enjoyable day exploring some new locations in the capital city just south of Ames. The Iowa State men have what are probably the easiest games of their remaining schedule this week, with Texas Tech in Ames tomorrow night, followed by a visit from Oklahoma on Saturday. Hopefully the team can bounce back and rebuild some confidence. We'll be there cheering them on!

Heeeeeeere's Johnny (with a little Hilton Magic)

Any Iowa State basketball fan knows about Hilton Magic and knows that it started with a coach by the name of Johnny Orr who left Michigan in 1980 to lead the program at Iowa State University for the rest of that decade and part of the next. That was also the year I was born, so my knowledge of the original Hilton Magic, the thunderous shouting and clapping support from the fans that would cause the rafters to vibrate, the floor to shake, and opposing players to miss free throws, is based on second-hand stories from an earlier generation.

I was fortunate, however, to attend ISU from 1998 through 2005 (thanks for a few extra years graduate school). Larry Eustachy was head coach, the torch having been passed on to him from Orr's successor, Tim Floyd, who had enough success to carry on the Hilton Magic tradition, including winning the final Big 8 Tournament over Kansas in 1996. During Eustachy's coaching stint, and my time as a student, Iowa State had some of it's best seasons ever, including two Big 12 championships and a memorable NCAA tournament run to the Elite 8, where they suffered a heartbreaking loss to eventual champion Michigan State. While the old timers may say that nothing compared to the Hilton Magic of the 80's, I can say that I had blast experiencing the late 90's and early 00's version.

Which brings me to tonight's game at Hilton against #3 ranked Kansas. Fred Hoiberg (a star player under Orr) has had more success in his first as coach of the Cyclones than most expected, but a win against Kansas still seemed fairly unlikely. As he said in pre-game interviews, Iowa State would need to play near perfectly to win. A big, loud home crowd wouldn't hurt either, and thankfully there was a noticeable increase in attendance tonight, thanks to Iowa State's decision to honor Johnny Orr with a special presentation before the game for the dedication of a new statue and donor's area. At age 83 he came bounding out of the tunnel to the Johnny Carson theme song, just like when he was coach, and gave the crowd all the first pumps it could handle.

The statue now on display captures the action quite well.

It was all almost enough to help the Cyclones get their most impressive win of the season (and really, of the last five years), but in the end Kansas had too many talented bodies and held off a couple of scrappy streaks by Iowa State to win, 84-79. Iowa State never led, but they came close multiple times, and during those pushes it was clear that Hilton Magic was starting to make a comeback. The crowd was into it, I was yelling my throat off during some key Kansas possessions, and if a three-pointer here or a put-back there had gone in for an Iowa State tie or lead, Hilton would have exploded. It was fun feeling, and we look forward to more in the future. This year's team may not have a lot of talent compared to the rest of the Big 12, but they have a lot of heart and know how to play together. I think we will see some upset wins in Ames yet this season.

In the meantime, here's a hilarious YouTube video of Johnny Orr giving ESPN college basketball commentator Dick Vitale an earful from back in the day.

Project 365 Day 365: Out With The Old

On this final day of 2010, and the final day of this Project 365 blog-a-day business, it is only fitting that we toss the Christmas tree out on the deck. And by we, I mean Amy, since my recent exploits on the basketball court that resulted in a sprained ankle prompted me to "take it easy" and act in a supervisory role only. I am happy to say that with much rest and leg elevation, my ankle continues to feel better, and I hope to be be walking with only a slight limp soon!

The Project 365 blog has been an interesting experiment in attempting to document some event from each day of the year, however insignificant. Amongst the many posts about basement rearrangements and meals and mismatched socks, hopefully there was an interesting tidbit every once in awhile for our faithful readers. It will be a neat reference to be able to go back in the future, and jog our memories of some of the things that happened during our first full year after moving back to Ames during the summer of 2009.

For 2011, we are planning to ease up on the volume of posting and try for updates on a weekly basis or thereabouts. Quality over quantity! We apologize to those who couldn't get enough pictures of canned goods from our grocery shopping trips, but we'll try to make the less frequent posts worth your while in the future.

Happy New Year!

Project 365 Day 364: Ankle Update

With some passing of time since yesterday's update, I am finally ready to admit that my sprained ankle was not directly caused by the Iowa State football team failing to make a bowl game this year. It really just came down to me thinking I could play recreational basketball like a 20-year old with my 30-year old not-very-conditioned body.

I found that I had some trouble walking this morning on my bad ankle, probably due to not having kept it elevated while I slept, but fortunately one of Amy's coworkers was kind enough to let us borrow some crutches she had on hand. These were very useful today to help keep the weight off that ankle, and I also found that after spending the morning and afternoon icing and elevating my foot, that I had a much easier time getting around, even without crutches. I will keep using them on and off though so I don't stress things too much. They sure beat having to crawl to the kitchen for breakfast!

Project 365 Day 363: More Ice Please

We continued our workout plan tonight with another trip to the rec, during which I was planning to shoot some hoops and maybe do a little sprinting between baskets for layups to get some cardio in. Instead, I was asked to play 3-on-3 pickup basketball, which of course I could not turn down!

The highlight of my performance was probably when I swished my first free throw attempt to choose teams. That's always a high pressure situation, and I was first up, so I felt like I really set the tone for the shooting-for-teams portion of the pickup games. Then about halfway through the first game I found myself winded, throwing up off-balance shots that were lucky to find the rim, and getting a few layups at opportune moments.

I probably should have quit after the first game, but I couldn't sit out the second and look like a wuss! Unfortunately it was during the second game that I jammed my ring finger against the ball while catching a pass (luckily on my off-hand!) and then rolled my ankle while trying to cut back too fast. All this resulted in my hobbling to the big comfy chair in the living room where Amy took this photo of me icing down my sore finger and ankle.

Really, though, I have no one to blame this on other than the Iowa State Football team. If they had managed to get one win in their last three tries, they would have had six wins and been invited to a late December bowl game, which we would have likely attended, causing me to not be at the rec tonight when the five gentlemen needed a sixth for their game.

Thanks a lot, Cyclones!

Project 365 Day 362: Winter Workouts

With rumors floating around that we might do RAGBRAI again this coming year, we have been preparing ourselves for such an event by going to the Lied Rec Center on campus for some workout time. We've been trying to go at least 3 times a week, and compared to when we started training for the bike ride across Iowa last year, we definitely have a head start this time.

Of course, if the Des Moines Register announces that the coming year's route is the hardest, hilliest ever, then maybe we'll just do AAAAGBRTDMAB instead.

Oh, you haven't heard of that common acronym? Well, it stands for Amy And Adam's Annual Great Bike Ride To Des Moines And Back.

Project 365 Day 361: Olde Leftovers

We had a nice meal out tonight with my parents, sister, and her boyfriend, as they had made a trip to Des Moines to do some furniture store browsing, and it worked out to grab a bite to eat in Ames before they headed back home. We went to Olde Main, ate some delicious food, and best of all, brought home some leftovers!

Project 365 Day 360: Presents Day Three

Today we "wrapped" up the holiday season (oh ho ho that was a great pun) with a gathering at my grandparent's house on my mom's side, and it was quite literally a full house! There were many young children running around, playing with their new toys and spreading the holiday cheer. Pictured here are a couple of toys taking a breather from the action, though I'm sure it wasn't long before they rejoined the fray.

All I can say is they sure make Transformers more complicated now then they did back in my youth! I was trying for the life of me to turn a Bumblebee Transformer robot back into its car form, but about all I accomplished was getting the rear wheels aligned. The front wheels, doors, windshields, and pretty much everything else had no hope of being transformed correctly in my hands. I'll just assume my 30 year old fingers are too big for the 8-14 year old specifications and I was doomed from the get-go.

Where's Mr. Potato Head when you need him?

Project 365 Day 359: Presents Day Two

For Christmas Day we moved the festivities to Independence for gatherings with my Dad's side of the family at his mom's house, followed a return to my parents house for evening gift opening with my parents, sister, and her boyfriend. Following the opening of gifts we had a fun time giving Mom and Dad a run down on how their new Netflix subscription works; hopefully the process of updating their movie queue does not introduce any marital strife! As we finished getting their Nintendo Wii set up for online Netflix streaming, Mom requested that we play some Christmas music piano duets, which Amy captured in this photo. My playing was a little rusty, so next year I'll have to get the music early and get some practice in ahead of time, but practiced or not it's always fun to make some music!